


All in Pieces

by elestaus



Category: Mabel (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 05:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14489409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elestaus/pseuds/elestaus
Summary: When was the last time anyone wore a jacket like that?





	All in Pieces

Thomas let his eyes close. He knew he couldn’t afford to rest long. The wooden slats of the bench under him would hopefully prove too uncomfortable for him to drift off entirely, but he’d been on his feet for days and didn’t know much longer he could push himself. His eyes burned from fatigue. He just needed to give them a moment.

A cold, persistent drizzle ensured the park was all but deserted. How long had it been since he last slept in a proper bed? He honestly couldn’t remember, not that the question made much sense in the first place. Time curled around him in loops and eddies, his very existence a temporal palindrome. Occasionally he’d see an advertisement on the street for something he recognized, whether it was a movie no one else remembered or a product that no longer existed on shelves. These glimpses of a familiar past were a cruel joke, he knew, but they never failed to make his heart leap, as if the airbrushed models and trite slogans held the secret to recovering what he’d lost.

Time and again he repeated what he knew to be real. His name was Thomas. He was… how many years old? 40? 50? But he’d been alive for longer. His only memory of the place he grew up was a hazy image of the garden gate, it’s white paint peeling with age. When he was ten his father let him have a dog, to teach him responsibility. He couldn’t remember its name.

How long had it been since he had a fixed address? Another pointless question. He’d stopped trying to find day labor long ago. Most days he’d count himself lucky if he could bum a smoke or scrape together enough for a coffee. No one looked too closely at him – most people barely saw him at all – but the scars on his face occasionally inspired pity. Last week someone had given him a ten dollar bill that he immediately spent on a paper sack of the greasiest fast food he could find, a feast of surpassing indulgence for someone who didn’t need to eat, strictly speaking.

Sleep was the one need he couldn't ignore, even if the hunters rarely let him linger long enough for a full night's rest. The fox sleeps with one eye open, he’d quickly learned. He never knew how long he’d have before they found him. They didn’t pursue him with any great haste. Not anymore, at least. For them, the thrill was in the chase, but that wouldn’t stop their hounds from tearing him apart if they caught him. Every time he’d been forced to piece himself together again there had been parts of him missing, shreds and scraps scattered to the wind and lost beyond recovery. How long would it be until there wasn’t enough of him left to carry on at all?

Unbidden, his mind returned to Lily. How she greeted him at the door of the house – that fucking house – and welcomed him inside. It must have been pure chance that she was the one to answer his knock. She’d offered him coffee to help him warm up. If he hadn’t kissed her back… but no. It was impossible for him to regret that even now, even if pulling back might have saved them both. His memory of Mabel was a silhouette at best, a figure seen at a distance, a child in someone else’s arms, and yet it was the memory he’d clung the tightest to after all this time.

Someone flipped him a quarter in passing, and Thomas woke from his almost-sleep, too groggy at first to offer thanks or get a clear look at their face. It was a minute or two before he’d gathered enough of his wits to examine the coin, but when he did, all thought of sleep fled from him in an instant. It wasn’t a quarter at all, but a piece of antique silver, as bright as if it had been newly minted.

Thomas got to his feet. He was alone in the park, as near as he could tell, with no sign of the generous stranger or where they might have gone. There was no distant baying of hounds and no sound of hunting horns, no matter how he strained his hearing. Nothing but the gentle patter of rain in the trees.

The silence was scant comfort. Thomas pulled his sheepskin jacket around him and started to walk. He might not hear them, but wherever they were, he knew they were getting closer. It was one of the only things he could be certain of these days.


End file.
